Have you heard of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN)? How about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)? Unless you’re a fan of Dan Brown (or just a really huge science geek), chances are most people would have never bothered with such technical-sounding terms. But think about how you’re able to access this article in the first place. Did you know that the World Wide Web (for kids born after Y2K, that’s the Internet) was just a by-product of CERN’s LHC project?
Touted as “the world’s greatest experiment”, the Large Hadron Collider was built to explore fundamental questions about the universe we live in, like what is it made from and why is there matter in the universe. The LHC is essentially searching for the initial moment of creation and why everything stays as it is after creation.
With 27 kilometres of apparatus running underground, the particle accelerator takes protons and whizzes them around in two directions at 99.999991% the speed of light, which means each proton travels around the 27-km ring more than 11,000 times a second. To put things into perspective, 27 kilometres is the distance between the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands to the Singapore Zoo in Mandai. Yup.
Moving away from the overly-technical aspects of the scientific secrets being explored, the “Collider” exhibit at the ArtScience Museum stays true to the venue’s name by counteracting jargon with art. It’s not just a nerdy day out – it could be a nerdy day out for the whole family.
The exhibition sheds light on the breakthroughs that CERN have achieved, but with a candid touch – parts of the showcase are recreations of the CERN offices themselves!
Described by some scientists as “a messy college dorm”, who knew the workspaces of the world’s greatest minds would look so similar to ours?
The “Gift of Mass” is an interactive art installation presented by the ArtScience Museum in conjunction with the original “Collider” exhibit that began at the established Science Museum in London. This interactive multi-screen installation is a special project conceived in 2012, a few months after the discovery of the Higgs boson, by Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in collaboration with embrio.net collective and the artist Paolo Scoppola. Translation: pretty lights!
To end off the tour, a special area titled “The Collision Space” allows for young explorers to summarise all they have learnt from the exhibit, even utilising LEGO bricks to demonstrate the Higgs particle and its effects!
So come on down for the “Collider” exhibit – now showing at the ArtScience Museum till 14 February 2016!
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To find out more about the exhibit, opening hours, and entry prices, please visit the Marina Bay Sands ArtScience Museum website here.
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